Day 108 — Bangkok - Tom and Marilee Retire to the Road

December 19, 2025

Day 108 — Bangkok

Marilee here.

Day three in Bangkok: we’d done the Relaxed Wandering Around Day, the Errands Day, now we were set to embark on Major Sightseeing Day.

We had kept the list of must-see sites intentionally short, to help prevent mid-day meltdowns should either of us become overwhelmed by heat (me!) or crowds (Tom). And we hoped to get an early start while the air was still fresh, and before the heat of the afternoon built up to full fiery intensity. These plans were only partially successful, as we’ll see.

Our first stop: Wat Arun, the temple of the dawn. It was well after dawn by the time we set out, but early enough that vendors in the local market were still setting up, and the breakfast stalls were doing a brisk business along the sidewalks. Wat Arun lies on the opposite bank of the Chao Phraya river a few kilometers south of our guesthouse, and so we headed to a nearby pier along the riverbank to catch one of the many commuter ferries that buzz up and down the river all day long.

Seeing the city from the vantage of the river was fascinating — sleek modern condo buildings sit side by side with dilapidated tenements and beautiful historic wooden houses, tugboats slowly pull giant barges up and down the river while tourist boats buzz past, the spires of wats compete with office towers for dominance on the horizon.

The commuter ferry deposited us across from Wat Arun, where we crowded onto a smaller ferry that takes tourists back and forth across the river to the temple all day long — a five minute ride that is mostly complicated docking procedures. The day before, I’d looked at the website for the Grand Palace and Wat Arun and learned that tourists were expected to dress respectfully at these culturally significant sites, which meant covered shoulders and knees — so we didn’t get to wear our matching tube tops and mini-skirts, such a shame! We’d both worn long pants, which were already making us suffer and it wasn’t even 9am yet, and as we waited for the ferry that would take us across the river, Tom pointed out that many of the other tourists didn’t seem to have got the memo about the dress code — we were sweating for nothing? Then just as the boat arrived, woman after woman reached into their bags, whipped out wraparound skirts and tied them on over their shorts. I was pretty jealous of this clever solution.

Entering Wat Arun, already with too much clothing on.

All of us tourists, whether attired appropriately or not, shuffled off the ferry and directly into a lineup at the ticket booth for the Wat. While we waited in line to pay, we were entertained by touts with signs advertising rentals of traditional Thai costumes. We’ve seen this elsewhere — in Kyoto at times it seemed that everyone was wearing a kimono and wooden clogs. Then we entered the site and suddenly everyone seemed to be a pretend Thai princess in a tight silk sarong and scarf ensemble, posing endlessly for photographs.

Trying to take all this in, and wondering “honestly, what gets into people?” while dodging the impromptu fashion photo shoots taking place on all sides made for a distracting temple visit, to say the least. Tom did a better job than I did of focusing on the actual temple, as the photos attest.

And the temple was wonderful, no question. There were a series of halls and cloisters and gardens arranged around an enormous central pagoda, or prang. All the buildings were spotless gleaming white, and the prang was exuberantly and intricately decorated up its entire length with ceramic flowers created from broken bits of pottery and shells. It positively glittered in the bright sun.

Bright roof tiles and a lineup of statuary along one of the cloisters.

Many of the statues seemed quite lighthearted and playful.

Partway up the prang, with ceramic decorations visible behind me.

A closeup of the ceramic decorations. They were amazing!

A view across the lawn as we left Wat Arun.

Did we dawdle at Wat Arun? It didn’t feel like it, but somehow time was slipping away from us. It was already late morning by the time we crossed over the river again, and we had much more to see. Our next tourist destination was the Grand Palace. We savored the breeze on the ferry ride, gathering our energies.

Nabbed a seat near the life preservers — just in case!

Our captain. Can you be an old salt if you steer a riverboat? Probably not, but if you could, he’d be one.

There was more clothing-related comedy at the Grand Palace — it seemed to be a theme for the day. Not only was there even more fancy Thai dress-up happening, all of a sudden there were men everywhere wearing identical baggy cotton pants patterned with black and white elephants. What was going on? And what’s with all the women wearing skirts of the same pattern?

It seemed that tourists who didn’t meet the dress code were being turned away, and a line of shops across from the palace were doing a bang up trade in cheap pants and skirts to get everyone up to the required standard. Being respectful apparently means stripping down to your skivvies on the street and putting on a pair of garish pants.

Full tourist mayhem in action at the Grand Palace.

The Palace was beautiful, golden and gleaming, and everything shimmered in the sun. It was all quite intense: so much to look at, so many people, such heat. I was getting dizzy from sensory overload. Or maybe I just needed lunch.

Pretty sure we have this picture in our album from 30 years ago

The afternoon was well on before we left the Grand Palace to catch a ferry back to our little neighborhood. Noodle soup and a cold coke from a street stall helped to revive us enough to make the journey. We were very glad to make it back to the guesthouse for our final night here. The next day we would be taking an afternoon train to Hua Hin, to start our southward cycle trek. We’re aiming to get to Singapore by mid-February, and hoping to clock some significant time on beaches along the way.

For our last evening in Bangkok we headed back to the riverside to enjoy the sunset and a breeze with our dinner. Our path this time took us through another wat, magical in the evening light, and then along a rickety boardwalk to our restaurant.

Heading out to dinner, with a shortcut through a wat.

I saw so many other tourists in elephant-patterned clothes today, I just had to get in on the trend.

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